By  Seamus McGraw

(Continued)

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But the last-minute plea, hammered out in secret by prosecutors and defense attorneys over the past several days, effectively short-circuited what was to have been a dramatic and heavily covered trial, slated to begin next week, a trial that many had hoped would finally end the lingering mystery of what happened to Taylor Behl.

Authorities had been prepared to argue that Fawley, who had met the young freshman in Richmond just days after she had arrived in that city, intentionally killed her, perhaps after she spurned his sexual advances.

Prosecutors, who had won an indictment against Fawley charging him with first-degree murder, were prepared to argue that after he killed her, he dumped her body in a shallow ravine on a remote farm linked to his ex-girlfriend's family in Mathews County where it was found, a month later, after a frantic and highly publicized search.

Fawley's attorneys were prepared to counter that Taylor Behl's death was an accident. That had been a scenario laid out not long after Fawley first emerged as a suspect. According to published reports, never disputed by Fawley's attorneys, Fawley told police that he had accidentally strangled the young woman during rough but consensual sex.

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